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Episode 1488: Wrinkle, Wrinkle, Little Star
Date January 17, 2020 Summary Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller review a wild, rumor-filled Thursday in baseball, touching on Jessica Mendoza’s comments about Mike Fiers, the end of Carlos Beltrán’s brief tenure as Mets manager, the Mets’ handling of his exit, the saga of not-Beltrán’s-niece, Twitter detectives following alleged leads about buzzers, Alex Bregman, and José Altuve, how efforts to document the banging scheme fueled the search for suspicious jerseys, MLB losing control of the sign-stealing narrative, comments on sign stealing by non-Astros players, how bad the scandal will be for baseball, and (on a happier note) the Giants’ hiring of Alyssa Nakken, the first female major league coach, then answer listener emails about how the Astros’ performance in 2020 will affect perceptions of sign stealing’s effectiveness, how many games the Astros would win if they were barred from the playoffs, the baseball equivalent of Ed “Straight Arrow” Gennero from Necessary Roughness, and Beltrán’s chances of making the Hall of Fame, plus a Stat Blast on striking out every hitter in a game. Topics * How the Astros' 2020 performance will impact the sign-stealing scandal * Giants' hiring of Alyssa Nakken * Striking out every batter in the lineup * Astros' performance with a postseason ban * Who should the Astros hire as their manager? * Impact of sign-stealing on Carlos Beltran's Hall of Fame candidacy Intro Dr. Dog, "Buzzing in the Light" Outro Donovan, "Jersey Thursday" Banter * Sam is currently on vacation and was not online on Thursday. Ben recaps a wild day for him in the baseball Twitter world. * Jessica Mendoza's comments about Mike Fiers * The Mets and Carlos Beltran parted ways. Ben describes it as "pretty Metsy", but Sam is not yet convinced of the wildness of the day. * A Twitter account claiming to be Carlos Beltran's niece accused the Astros of using buzzers to relay signs to hitters. Beltran's family denies the authenticity of the account, and Gary Sheffield Jr. claimed that it was a burner account for a MLB player. * Sam is delighted about the rumor that the account could have been Incarcerated Bob, a Twitter user known for sports rumormongering. * Ben recaps the lengths to which Twitter, Reddit, and other online communities analyzed photos of Astros' jerseys looking for evidence of wires or buzzers. * Justin Verlander's past comments on sign stealing in light of the Astros' scandal * Reviewing Alex Bregman and Alex Cora's comments about Carlos Beltran's impact on the 2018 Yankees * Is this scandal good for baseball? Email Questions * OpenFlyWheelProject: "How does the effectiveness of sign stealing change how we view it. If the Astros next year run a team wide 100 wRC+, does this become a significantly bigger deal in the public discourse?" * Nat: "This question is inspired by Tyler Kepner's article in the times about Gerrit Cole. He refers to Cole as a "strapping right hander who strikes everyone out." Obviously, we've never seen a 27-strikeout game. But what about striking everyone out (at least once)? How common is it for a starting pitcher to record at least one strikeout against every player on the other team? Has Cole ever done it?" * Ezra: "Imagine a universe in which the Astros are ruled out of the 2020 postseason but still play regular season games as usual. How many games would they win? Would they still be favorites to lead the division by season’s end? The players would still have a financial incentive to play well, and I’d imagine they’d have a bit of “us against the world” motivation. Would exclusion from the playoffs really affect them much?" * Joe K. (Herndon, VA): "In the classic 1991 college football farce Necessary Roughness, Texas State University, facing the death penalty, hires Ed 'Straight-Arrow' Gennero to take over as the Fightin' Armadillos Head Coach. Assuming Jim Crane had the same motivations as Texas State - both ensuring compliance and reassuring the public that they were serious about cleaning up the program - who could be Houston's Straight-Arrow Gennero? The only person I can think of that would even come close would be Cal Ripken. Can you all think of anyone better?" * Ethan: "With all the different angles of the Astros sign-stealing scheme, one I haven't seen brought up is whether this may affect Carlos Beltran's Hall of Fame chances? With his candidacy pending in three years, I could see voters holding this against him in a similar way to how some voters won't vote for steroids guys. Is it not the same thing, or is cheating cheating?" Stat Blast * The Stat Blast segment is based off Nat's email about a pitcher who strikes out each batter on a team at least once during a game. * In the 2019 season there were 60 games where every home team batter struck out and 57 games where every away team batter struck out. Gerrit Cole had the most recent game when he struck out all Mariners batters in a late September game. * In 2019 there were 3 games where all 18 home and away batters struck out. This had only happened 4 times previously in MLB history. * Editor's note: A member of the Facebook group used Retrosheet to answer the original question. ** From 1919 to 2018, there were 296 games in which a pitcher struck out all 9 opposing starters. In recent years, there are about 10 such games per year. ** Last year, Gerrit Cole accomplished the feat twice, joining 25 other pitchers with two such games in a season. Pedro Martinez (1999) and Chris Sale (2017) did it three times. ** On April 24, 1962, Sandy Koufax struck out all 9 starters plus all 3 pinch hitters. Notes * Ben notes that summarizing for Sam what he missed in social media is similar to Episode 1440, where Ben recaps playoff games that Sam hasn't had a chance to watch yet. * The Mets say that they had not asked Carlos Beltran about his involvement in the scandal until the Commissioner's report came out. Sam goes contrarian and says that this is understandable, since there have been no games played since the scandal broke, so no urgency. * The Mets say that they dismissed Beltran because of his prominence in the report, which Ben finds curious because his name appears only once. * Ben doesn't think the cheating scandal can become even more significant in public discourse than it already is. If the Astros hitting suddenly declines, then that's suspicious. Would that indicate that they were also cheating in 2019? * Sam has a friend whose take on the sign-stealing scandal is that if the Astros are bad next year, then it's proof that they were cheating. And if they're good next year, then it's proof that they're still cheating. "He is living a good life." * Sam thinks it'll be a bigger deal if the Astros are noticeably worse next year. * Sam establishes a few criteria for evaluating cheating. *# How much effort went into it? Was it planned cheating that required effort to set up, or was it cheating as a crime of opportunity, such as Derek Jeter pretending that he was hit by a pitch. *# How effective it was. *# How much the behavior violated social norms. Cheating that involves injury to others such as the New Orleans Saints bounty-gate is more reprehensible. Steroids fall into this category because it requires others to risk their own health (by taking their own steroids) to keep up. *# How widespread that type of cheating is among other teams. * Sam predicts that the big stories of the first month of the season will be the Astros offensive performance on quick-to-stabilize stats, and the liveliness of the baseball. * Alyssa Nakken is the first female coach at the major league level and will be on the field in uniform during batting practice, but not in games because teams are limited to seven coaches in the dugout during a game. * Sam guesses that the Astros win total would be in the low 90s if they could not play in the postseason. Players would take more days off, especially in September when their stats are pretty locked in. * Ben recalls an earlier discussion about the effect on a universally-hated team that was booed in every ballpark. "That's basically what the Astros are going to be in 2020, so we're going to see." * Ben guesses that the same BBWAA voters who do not vote for steroid users would also not vote for players known to be involved in the sign-stealing scandal. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 1488: Wrinkle, Wrinkle, Little Star * Facebook discussion thread for this episode * Jessica Mendoza Speaks for the Mets. Or Is It for ESPN? It Depends. by Kevin Draper * MLB Tried to Bring the Astros Scandal to a Close. Instead, It’s Only Getting Bigger. by Michael Baumann * Buzzers, burner accounts, and conspiracies - Inside baseball's epic day of chaos by Jeff Passan * Woman in uniform: New Giants coach Alyssa Nakken makes major-league history by Andrew Baggarly * ‘A game-changer’: Before he was the Mets’ choice to manage, Carlos Beltrán was an unofficial coach with the Astros by Rustin Dodd * Flashback To When Alex Cora Quietly Accused Carlos Beltran Of Stealing Signs With Yankees by CBS Boston * Justin Verlander was a vocal foe of sign-stealing. Then he became an Astro. by Evan Woodbery * Carlos Beltrán’s Job and Legacy Are in Limbo by Jay Jaffe * Finally, a Fun Baseball Scandal by Will Leitch * U.S. Congressman Requests Oversight Hearing Into MLB's 'Cheating Scandal' by Ben Pickman Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes